History has seen many engaging films highlighting image makers: Martin Parr. Perhaps cinematic storytelling particularly shines when displaying particularly vivid photographs. Today we have a new outstanding example, by filmmaker Yemi Bamiro, exploring the remarkable career of Kwame Brathwaite—a creative force, musician and African American activist who represented a distinct cultural-activist perspective.
In partnership with his brother Elombe, he pioneered the slogan “Black Is Beautiful” throughout the 1960s by capturing the Harlem models in New York: youthful African American women who became the transformative standard for beauty, abandoning typical grooming practices and the predominant white ideal of female beauty.
The Influence of a Simple Phrase
The iconic phrase became a transformative unifying message, an visionary three-word declaration for transformation. Simply declaring that black people radiated beauty became a empowering influence in art, politics and the arts. The artist grew into integral to the civil rights global Black cause by documenting Muhammad Ali prior to his legendary championship fight in the seventies.
He served as the primary photographer for the band's African tour, and eventually assumed the role of the official visual chronicler for the legendary Harlem venue, assembling an amazing collection of black musicians. In collaboration with Elombe, he became the key organizer behind arranging for the anti-apartheid icon to appear in the community.
Family Legacy
The photographer's offspring Kwame Jr shares the family's mission to ensure due acknowledgment for his father's legacy after he was painfully excluded in the nation's capital's Smithsonian institution, inaugurated by the political leader in this century.
The feature also recounts the deeply tragic genesis of the artist's interest in image making: the disturbing images of the young victim, the teenage Black lynching victim whose grieving mother boldly demanded an uncovered casket so the horrific reality of bigoted brutality might not be concealed.
Amidst Sorrow to Empowerment
Through this vision of horror, the artist discovered a kind of transformative realization that guided him toward visual representations of beauty. His photographs powerfully conveyed community pride and typically not overtly political: he established a new visual language of empowerment through which political movements could gather.
It is an exhilarating testament of artistic vision that continues to empower through the years.
